John Matthews
WMAL.com

FAIRFAX — (WMAL) In what amounts to a pretty rare sighting these days, Virginia Department of Transportation crews can be seen out and about on the region’s highway medians this week, cutting the grass.

It’s just the second time this season that VDOT has brought out the mowers, and if all goes according to schedule, the mowers will make just one additional pass this year.

“It depends on how much rain we have, it depends on how fast the grass is growing, but generally, crews are on the second cycle for the year right now,” says VDOT spokeswoman Jennifer McCord.

The mowing schedule is generally set for budgetary, not aesthetic reasons, and some local lawmakers say they’d like VDOT to be better citizens.

“It’s really sort of the good neighbor concept,” says Fairfax County Supervisor John Cook ( R-Braddock). “In our neighborhoods, we all ask our neighbors and hope that our neighbors keep their lawns in decent shape. VDOT used to do that with the roads, and doesn’t any more,” he added.

VDOT slashed the grass mowing schedule in half several years ago at the height of the recession, and never moved to restore it, but McCord says it does make additional trimming as needed.

“If there’s a sight distance issue, particularly in a median area, there would be additional trimming,” says McCord. “So we also do additional vegetation trimming, mowing and all types of activities to try and get that vegetation out of the way for folks who need to be able to see,” she adds.

Cook says that’s not good enough. He says the current mowing schedule makes the county look shabby and unkempt, and now that the state has dedicated funding for transportation, he says some of that should be funneled off to tidy up highways.

“I’m not looking for anything extra or pristine, I’m just looking for sort of a normal type of mowing,” he says.

Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: V-DOT)